Hi all,
Great news! Drum rolls… MSFS Pop Out Panel Manager beta release v3.4.6 should now be compatible with SU12 beta!!!
I was able to install SU12 beta successfully earlier today and did a quick discovery run and see what are the breaking changes and was able to implement code and did some quick testing before MSFS server went down (I’ve the MS store version of the game). Anyway, below are 4 major issues that I was able to fix.
Issue #1: Pop outs no longer group together when they are being popped out.
Fix: This is actually an easy fix. I just remove panel separation routine and rework the pop out workflow. Also as an added benefit, since panels no longer need to be separated when they pop out initially, POPM can keep the size of the panel during the pop out process as the original author of the aircraft had intended. Black bars around instrumentations when pop out may not be an issue anymore if original author didn’t design for them to be there.
Issue #2: Pop out panel has title that is not generic.
Fix: Update code to ignore pop out panel title. This was almost a major showstopper because POPM was counting on pop out panel with empty title to identify what is an instrumentation pop out panel and what is not.
Issue #3: Touch support.
Fix: With #2 fix above, touch support works as expected since POPM can still get a reference of the pop out panel to perform mouse emulation.
Issue #4: MSFS has its own system of saving panel location with potential conflict with POPM.
Fix: POPM will now override MSFS saved locations. When the panels are popped out, MSFS will place pop outs in its previously saved location, POPM will then override these panel locations using the panel configurations in your aircraft profile. All your existing POPM profiles should still work as expected.
*Note: I’ve encountered a possible bug in SU12 (using PMDG 737) where MSFS new panel location saving feature saved panels coordinates are somehow totally off screen and I cannot get (drag) the panels back into view. POPM is not the cause since it was not running when the issue happened. But there is a workaround if you encounter this issue. After POPM pop out process ends, if you either do not see panel popping out or do not see where the panels are, you can just use POPM data configuration grid (type in coordinates such as moving the panel by 1 pixel) to move panels back into view.
I did some quick testing before MSFS server went down by building new aircraft profiles and popping out instrumentation panels for the following aircraft:
Non-touch screen aircraft
- PMDG 737-800
- Cessna 172 G1000
- CJ4
Touch screen aircraft
- TBM 930, KingAir 350 (G3000)
- C172 with PMS GTN750
- Cessna Citation Longitude (G3000/5000)
To download the latest beta, please go to my github repo below and download release v3.4.6 “msfs-popout-panel-manager-su12-only.zip”. You can unzip it in any folder of your choice or overwrite your existing POPM installation. This version will read your existing POPM aircraft profiles configuration data.
Although my updated code did not change anything in regards to your POPM aircraft profile data files, but to be safe in case something goes wrong, you can make a backup of POPM data files in the following Windows document folder.
%userprofile%\Documents\MSFS Pop Out Panel Manager
Please report back in this thread if this version fixes compatibility issue with SU12 beta. I’ll do more testing sometime tomorrow and if I find any issue, I’ll fix it and publish POPM beta updates. It’s getting late here in east coast USA and I doubt MSFS server will be back up before I go to bed!
Happy flying!
Stanley